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Average invoice value
- Thread starter Jon Aston
- Start date
Locals Find!
New Member
I keep track of it in my head. I am sure the Quickbooks has a report for that. I just haven't looked at it.
I figure my average invoice to be about $100-$150 for most printing jobs - Sign Jobs average between $150-$500.00
Average, seems to stay about the same for me. Of course most of my clients are very small businesses and Realtors so its been the same products over and over for years. Postcards, Business, Cards, 4 & 10 pack 4/4 coroplast, Sign Riders, Magnets and Real Estate Frames.
I figure my average invoice to be about $100-$150 for most printing jobs - Sign Jobs average between $150-$500.00
Average, seems to stay about the same for me. Of course most of my clients are very small businesses and Realtors so its been the same products over and over for years. Postcards, Business, Cards, 4 & 10 pack 4/4 coroplast, Sign Riders, Magnets and Real Estate Frames.
Letterbox Mike
New Member
$314.16 average invoice. One of our bigger customers (a hospital) orders hundreds and hundreds of 2x3' foamcore signs per year, but they require us to invoice each one separately and they're not overly expensive per sign so that throws our curve off. Sometimes we'll produce 40-50 signs in a group but they're all for different doctors or departments, so even though all together it's a $2500-$3000 order it's billed as 50 small orders.
jiarby
New Member
I know that customers that used to buy $18 trophies now buy $5 medals. In the restaurant biz they call that statistic PPA (Per Person Average) How many people did you server divided into your total sales.
If you make 15% then you would rather work at a fancypants steakhouse where the PPA is $75 versus El Chico's with a $10 PPA. At the steak house you can sell $1000 a night and only server 15 people. Mr. Waiter makes $150. BUT at El Chicos he has to wait on more than 100 people AND, his average tip is probably lower (13% maybe versus 18%) This is whay lowballer sign companies die... they have to work alot harder to make the same money!
This is why restaurants like to upsell... they are only going to see so many customers per night, so you need to get them for as much as you can. A side of sour cream, a loaded baked potato, sauteed mushrooms on your steak, and one dessert can add $10-15 to the tab PLUS give the guest an enhanced experience (fat+sugar=yummy) so they leave happy and come back again.
An analogy for us...
Try this one: When you sell a banner to a retail customer also make them a decal of the banner design. More than you would think it turns into an order for the decals! Whenever you do a proof for someone also show them their design in a couple other formats. If they bought coros then show them how it looks as a door magnet and/or a t-shirt. I recently added $600 to a ticket for t-shirts by showing them the layout as a bumper sticker as well when I sent the proof. It took 5-10 minutes extra and made me a few hundred extra dollars. I didn't even have to make them! I send the file to Stouse and they blind shipped them to the customer. EZ Money!
Try to raise your PPA!
If you make 15% then you would rather work at a fancypants steakhouse where the PPA is $75 versus El Chico's with a $10 PPA. At the steak house you can sell $1000 a night and only server 15 people. Mr. Waiter makes $150. BUT at El Chicos he has to wait on more than 100 people AND, his average tip is probably lower (13% maybe versus 18%) This is whay lowballer sign companies die... they have to work alot harder to make the same money!
This is why restaurants like to upsell... they are only going to see so many customers per night, so you need to get them for as much as you can. A side of sour cream, a loaded baked potato, sauteed mushrooms on your steak, and one dessert can add $10-15 to the tab PLUS give the guest an enhanced experience (fat+sugar=yummy) so they leave happy and come back again.
An analogy for us...
Try this one: When you sell a banner to a retail customer also make them a decal of the banner design. More than you would think it turns into an order for the decals! Whenever you do a proof for someone also show them their design in a couple other formats. If they bought coros then show them how it looks as a door magnet and/or a t-shirt. I recently added $600 to a ticket for t-shirts by showing them the layout as a bumper sticker as well when I sent the proof. It took 5-10 minutes extra and made me a few hundred extra dollars. I didn't even have to make them! I send the file to Stouse and they blind shipped them to the customer. EZ Money!
Try to raise your PPA!
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Letterbox Mike
New Member
ehh what a pain. I assume you build that extra cost in.
Do they pay with all separate checks with 14 digit check numbers too like ours does?
Yes to the first question. Fortunately they tend to pay many invoices at once so that's nice.
Jiarby, raising our PPA is something we're trying to figure out how to do. Problem with it is, 85% or so of our business is wholesale to agencies, designers, printers, sign shops, etc., so it's hard to upsell to those clients because they don't come to us looking for raw solutions usually. And of the handful of retail work that we do, the majority of it is typically for larger companies with in-house art/marketing departments who are similarly hard to upsell to. We do a fairly good job of doing that with the random smaller companies we work for, they're pretty easy to upsell to actually. But it's a challenge when dealing with people that come to us already set with a mission.
Locals Find!
New Member
Fred Weiss
Merchant Member
We haven't been tracking that number for the last couple of years because of the shifting of the focus of our businesses. But I would add that we've used that figure for many years along with the figure for percentage of sales to quotes (closing rate). The two things together are extremely powerful not only for evaluating individual performance but also overall company performance in the marketplace.
For example: John in sales averages $200 per sale and has a closing percentage of 60%. Roger in sales averages $150 and has a closing rate of 50%. The company overall has an average invoice of $175 and averages 55%. From that information I can compare performance ...
John = 200 x 60% = $120 per sales lead
Roger = 150 x 50% = $75 per sales lead
Company = 175 x 55% = $96.25 per sales lead
Conclusion = Give John a bonus and a promotion. Give Roger some additional sales training and supervision. Have John train others to sell more effectively.
For example: John in sales averages $200 per sale and has a closing percentage of 60%. Roger in sales averages $150 and has a closing rate of 50%. The company overall has an average invoice of $175 and averages 55%. From that information I can compare performance ...
John = 200 x 60% = $120 per sales lead
Roger = 150 x 50% = $75 per sales lead
Company = 175 x 55% = $96.25 per sales lead
Conclusion = Give John a bonus and a promotion. Give Roger some additional sales training and supervision. Have John train others to sell more effectively.
Craig Sjoquist
New Member
My average Hand Painted Advertisement is about $200, since alot of my customers are low to middle income businesses and can only afford so much at one time.
Up selling would be great and easy for me but do not have all that fancy software you all have nor that super printer, and I'm not about to give my know how away to some young sign shop that knows how to push buttons only, and are only willing to hire at just above minimum wage for complete software and machine know how.
Up selling would be great and easy for me but do not have all that fancy software you all have nor that super printer, and I'm not about to give my know how away to some young sign shop that knows how to push buttons only, and are only willing to hire at just above minimum wage for complete software and machine know how.
Pat Whatley
New Member
Counting only the invoices I stick in the mail my average is $188.80 right now.
iSign
New Member
well, my first invoice, #4132 was written Jan 5 and my last one, on Dec 28 was number 4565, so I had 433 sales.. and when i divide my worst sales totals in 6 years, by 433...
I get $397
I just checked... my annual COGS and labor costs, divided by 433 sales equals $115 per sale spent on those two operating costs (29%)
hmmm.... I'm gonna check a few past years
I get $397
I just checked... my annual COGS and labor costs, divided by 433 sales equals $115 per sale spent on those two operating costs (29%)
hmmm.... I'm gonna check a few past years
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iSign
New Member
and the year before.. before I fired that worthless punk (well before "incognito" fired him 
) I had only 8% higher sales, a slightly lower ave sale amount of $359...
AND.. a whopping $214 per sale on COGS and labor!!!!
OR 60%
I think part of that was over buying goods last year & being able to sell using that inventory this year... but most of it was not firing the punk many many months earlier when i should have
) I had only 8% higher sales, a slightly lower ave sale amount of $359... AND.. a whopping $214 per sale on COGS and labor!!!!
OR 60%
I think part of that was over buying goods last year & being able to sell using that inventory this year... but most of it was not firing the punk many many months earlier when i should have
thinksigns
SnowFlake
bayshorecreations
New Member
Next thing Jon is gonna tell you all is that he works for the IRS and your all getting audited now